Paul McGowan writes: …. we visualized how cool it would for the high-end loudspeaker guys to solve one of the biggest issues people have with a high-end system in their homes: taking up too much floor space. To solve this problem, I challenged them to design speakers to be placed 1 foot away from the […]
Paul McGowan
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In the early 70′s Stan (The “S” in PS) and I only made phono preamplifiers. They had no controls, just a turntable input and a set of RCA outputs. Designed to go into the auxiliary inputs of the user’s preamplifier. But that was never how we used it. It was impossible for us to design […]
Our knee-jerk reaction to pro vs. home is that the former is better than the latter. After all, the pros make their living using equipment and we amateurs don’t. Ergo, a pro drill must be better than a Black and Decker, a chef’s knife superior to a Popiel offering. Of course, not all pro gear […]
Today I’d like to finish up on SMPS (switch mode power supplies) and how they work in a power amp as well as why we don’t want them in digital source equipment. I’ve detailed how much better a SMPS is from the aspect of DC; we get almost no ripple, it’s clean and without […]
Paul McGowan Everyone one of us has them. Even if they’re the small and sitting atop your head. Without speakers, everything else is useless for making sound. But I suppose one could make the same argument about sources or AC power. With nothing to pass through loudspeakers, or clean AC to power them, speakers would be […]
Paul McGowan writes: Just for grins I pulled out a 30 year old preamplifier from PS Audio and gave it a listen. I was stunned at just how good it sounded. At first I was depressed because it immediately said to me that we can’t have made much progress over the last three decades. But […]
Reader Mark Fisher writes: “those who have worked on the problem longest and are most familiar with it are often those stuck in the deepest most inescapable ruts of all they’ve dug for themselves over the better part of a lifetime. They’re the experts.” Now there’s something all of us can not only relate to […]
Paul McGowan writes: In a previous post The thing about skeptics I asked you to play along with my thought game. If you are in a perfectly quiet space in your home or work, close your eyes and try and visualize the size of the room. Can you do it? Can you get a sense […]
Vacuum tubes are the original amplification devices. How do they stack up against modern solid-state transistors, especially in audio systems? Paul gives us the real scoop. Watch Now
Paul McGowan: Your watch should be accurate. So too your alarm clock. And let’s not forget how important it is for the country’s GPS system to be accurate, for without accuracy, our machines that tell us where we are and where we’re going will lead us astray. But how important is accuracy in your digital […]
Paul McGowan: Have you ever considered that a turntable setup in your home is completely unique to you? Every record you listen to, every scratch, tick, pop and musical note played on your system is unlike what I hear on my system and unlike what your friends hear on theirs. Vinyl reproduction of LP’s are […]
Paul McGowan A power amplifier is a fixed gain device. Whatever signal you put in a much larger one comes out and that amount is determined by the amp’s gain. How and why are gains set at a specific level and why do PS Audio amplifiers have relatively higher gains than other amplifiers? Watch Now […]
Paul McGowan: Switch Mode Power Supplies, or SMPS, just sounds nasty. No, not the supply itself but the word “Switch Mode”. Shades of choppy, digital, not linear, radiating, messy. Definitely something you want to stay away from. A SMPS is a linear power supply only it doesn’t have a big power transformer like what we […]
Paul McGowan: Visiting audio clubs, dealers, trade shows and people’s homes is illuminating to me. I am always learning. Recently I sat in front of a dealer’s high-end demo system and was amazed at how wrong the image was. The entire presentation of the music was between my seating position and the loudspeakers: a logical […]
Paul McGowan: “If your going to sell high end cars like a Corvette, you need to drive it, shift it, corner it, to appreciate it. The thrill of whipping around in a Corvette is pretty righteous and just ignites passion inside of one when experienced.” Brad Paulson writes a terrific and insightful article about passion […]
Paul McGowan We love smooth and perfect and shy away from irregularities. When I find a smooth surface, like a kitchen countertop, I feel compelled to rub my hand on its face to appreciate its perfection. Bumps and blits underhand are noticed immediately and I want to get a wet rag and scrub them clean. […]
Paul McGowan: So let’s imagine you’ve taken my suggestions, done all you can to fix a ground loop hum issue at its source and you still have hum. What then? Then you have to take a different path: break the ground loop. To do this you will need to ‘unground’ the offending piece of equipment. […]
Paul McGowan writes: Last night we’re walking by a hotel and through an open window I hear the sound of a live piano. The folks I am with hear the same thing and comment on the fact it’s live. How is it we can tell something is live vs. recorded and reproduced from a distance […]
Paul McGowan writes: A while back I mentioned John Atkinson’s name and several of my readers were horrified–said they could not trust him–because he had heard a difference on a process that intellectually offended them. Rubbish. Let’s examine this notion. The offending item is the demagnetizing of CDs. I may be thrown out of the […]
Paul McGowan: When I meet new people I am often asked how is it we even dare to compete against the giants in our industry like Sony or Harman? There’s a simple answer and then a more complex one. The simple answer is we’re not – never have been. Our market is the high-end, Sony […]
Paul McGowan: I am always fascinated by macro views – those all encompassing views of complex interactions we tend to think of as simple and explainable when in reality they are terribly complicated and intertwined. Let me give you some examples. Ever stop and wonder what the rules and mechanisms of automobile traffic patterns might […]
Paul McGowan writes: Have you ever noticed how much better your car runs after you wash it? Or how about how much better your audio system sounds after you’ve cleaned, dusted, and taken some time to groom the room? Maybe I am the only one on this planet that feels this, but I suspect not. […]
Generalities While reading through the comments section of a blog I stopped at one standout. “I prefer the sound of speakers from across the pond.” Generalities. We tend to group our opinions into neat little boxes: British speakers are bass deficient, American speakers are big and brash, silver conductors are brighter than copper, tubes are […]
For most people, amplification of the musical signal means just that. Taking the original signal as generated by the source and making that signal bigger. Only, that’s not what happens. In the same way the energy from your leg pressing a gas pedal is not actually amplified in the movement of an automobile, it would be more […]